Mardy Fish hopes to put together a complete tournament schedule for the rest of 2013, including the three remaining Grand Slam events, after he ends a six-month absence brought on by a heart condition.

Off the tour since September, the former top-10 player plans to return to competition at the hard-court event in Indian Wells, Calif., which begins March 7, followed by the Key Biscayne, Fla., tournament, which starts March 20.

"And then, after that, we'll re-evaluate, but he has every intention of playing a full schedule the rest of the year," Fish's agent, John Tobias, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

"It's definitely been a long road back for him. He's had his ups and downs. But he's beginning to really get his confidence back," Tobias said. "It's all a process. He's working out every day, for three to four hours a day. He's excited to get back on the court and be on the tour and be back with his buddies."

The 31-year-old Fish wrote on his Twitter feed this week: "For those of you wondering when I'm going to play again... Indian Wells will be my first one back. Thanks for all the love."

All told, it's been nearly a full year of treatment and recovery for the American, who went to be checked by doctors after a match at Key Biscayne in late March 2012, because his heart started racing uncontrollably that night. He pulled out of the U.S. Davis Cup team's matches the following week.

In May, doctors induced extreme palpitations to try to pinpoint the problem in Fish's heart. He returned to the tour at Wimbledon in June.

But then Fish withdrew from the U.S. Open in early September on doctor's advice, hours before he was scheduled to face Roger Federer in the fourth round. A third-round victory over Gilles Simon that went five sets in New York was Fish's most recent tournament action.

Fish, who reached a career-best ATP ranking of No. 7 in 2011, is No. 32 this week.

He is scheduled to play top-ranked Novak Djokovic in California next Monday in an exhibition match to benefit the Mardy Fish Foundation.

Mardy Fish, who in his first public match since the U.S. Open lost a pro set to Novak Djokovic at the LA Tennis Challenge on Monday, says he nearly called it quits. The 31-year-old American has been dealing with heart trouble since early last spring, as well as the emotional stress that came along with it.

“I’ve retired 15 times in my head—literally,” he told a small group of reporters in Los Angeles. “For the first three to four months [after the 2012 U.S. Open] I was done for sure, but then gradually you start feeling better and gaining more confidence and your body feels better and you start working out, start missing Australia and watch a little tennis and you miss the guys and the competing.”

It was the first time that Fish has spoken publicly since the 2012 U.S. Open. Last summer, he admitted to being unable to sleep because he feared he would never wake up.

However, Fish does not want to say exactly why he hasn't played since New York.

“There were times I felt really good and there were others I didn’t at all,” he said. “I had good weeks and bad weeks. I’ve gone back and forth to spill it all, to keep it in, or keep it with people who are closest to me. The bottom line was what I went through is toughest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. It’s not something that's easy to talk about. It was as hard on my wife as it was on me. I still have to come up with the right time to play. I thought the right time was San Jose, then Memphis, now I think the right time to play is Indian Wells. I haven’t felt better than this since U.S. Open, but you can’t take it for granted.”

Fish conceded that what occurred was a combination of physical and mental factors.

“The fear of the unknown was one of my problems, and in the immediate future is something I have to battle,” Fish said. “It’s not anything that I have to run off the court in the middle of match, but it’s something that’s very uncomfortable, the fear that something might happen. It took me months to get back to normalcy to have a glass of wine at dinner and go out to a movie with my wife. Those normal things you take for granted.”

Fish, who reached a career-high No. 7 ranking in 2011, said he had to face that fact that his heart trouble will always be with him and that he could not just wish it away. He added that he has kept a very strict and healthy schedule at home where he goes to bed early every night, so re-adjusting to the odd hours of the pro tour will be challenging. But he felt that playing Djokovic in front of 8,500 people at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion—and making a solid showing—was a positive step.

“Tonight was big test in a setting with a lot of people,” the now-world No. 32 said. “It certainly felt like there a lot of pressure. I don't feel 100 percent, but I am getting really close. You can’t duplicate that stuff in practice….It’s just time and it’s the next step. I don't feel like I have anything to prove, and I feel like I have years more to play.”

Mardy is playing doubles with Blake right now. They won the 1st set, too bad that there are no streams

Quote:

Q. Mardy is going to walk out on the court for the first time in a while and you are going to be with him.

JAMES BLAKE: Yeah. I think he played really well at the LA Tennis Challenge a couple days ago, so I'm excited to be out there with him. It will be fun. I practice with him a ton in the offseason, so I know he's hitting the ball great.
I'm not worried about the way he's going to play. I'm happy he will be out there feeling good, and I'm honored to be the one that's out there with him when he comes back because I know how hard it's been.
It's been a long journey for him, and I hope I really, really hope that it's easier for him to be out there with me, with someone that you know, I like to think of myself as one of his good friends out here that cares about him more as a person than any results will ever speak to.
So we are going to go out there and have some fun, and it will bring back some memories for us when we were 20, 21 years old out here playing doubles and having a lot of fun. The veterans probably hated us because we were laughing too much while we were playing doubles.
I hope we can go out there tomorrow and just laugh and have a good time. I actually think we play our best when we are doing that, but I also think it will be good for him and good for me to just get out there and laugh and hopefully make it easy on him.

I'm surprised Mardy won. Saw the first set and he was very rusty (poor serving, no touch/feel for the ball, lack of anticipation). But it is great to see him get the win; don't think he will win his next round though.